Valeant acquires Swiss pharma company

Canada's Valeant Pharmaceuticals has signed a deal to acquire Swiss firm PharmaSwiss S.A. for €350m in a move to strengthen its European presence

Canada's Valeant Pharmaceuticals International has signed a deal to acquire the privately held Swiss firm PharmaSwiss S.A. for €350m in a move to strengthen its European presence.

PharmaSwiss, which specialises in branded generics and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, is based in Zug, Switzerland, and has operations in 19 countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Serbia. The company had revenues of about €180m in 2010 and has been growing at an annual rate of about 20 per cent over the past five years.

PharmaSwiss' senior management team will remain in place after the closing of the acquisition, working closely with the Valeant Europe team. Eventually, Valeant plans to fold its business in Central Europe into the PharmaSwiss corporate structure.

Valeant expects operating income as a percentage of revenue of the combined Central and Eastern European business to be similar to that of Valeant's historical branded generic European business.

The deal is expected to close before the end of the second quarter of 2011 and to be immediately accretive to Valeant.

Valeant said it was attracted to the Swiss firm because of its active partnering strategy and complementary branded generics and OTC product portfolio. PharmaSwiss has partnerships with multinational companies including Amgen, Astellas, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ferring, Ipsen, Lilly, Norgine, and Pfizer.

Valeant develops and markets pharmaceuticals with a focus on neurology, dermatology and branded generics. The company as it currently exists was created last year when the Canadian pharma company Biovail acquired the US-based company called Valeant, creating the merged company that now operates under the name.